The Undiscovered Country

I know nothing - yet still I write

Everyone knows the age-old saying: Write what you know.

While true to a certain extent, it’s also something that can derail a writing career long before it starts.

Why? How many of us know we know enough about a subject to write about it well enough that will garner the interest of many, not just a few?

I’m not one of them. I may know a little about a lot, but I know a lot about nothing. Nothing is of no interest to anyone.

How then can I write about anything?

It’s quite simple. I changed the saying above to: Write about what you want to know. Every great historian knew little about their subject to start aside from an insatiable interest and motivation to learn. They all spent sometimes years researching before they wrote a single word of their manuscript.

That’s nonfiction.

What about fiction?

Writing fiction, at least for me, comes from an insatiable desire to learn all I can about the worlds revolving in my head, and the people who live on those worlds. Out of that exploration comes a compulsion to tell their stories so others, too, might enjoy and learn as much, if not more, than I have.

Writing isn’t just about what we know.

It’s about what we discover.